Left-leaning academics explained

Left-leaning academics explained

Nice summation of an academic paper examining why so many professors tend to sit at the left end of the political spectrum. Two reasons (among several): 1) Despite high intelligence, profs are paid less than private sector smarties, so they tend to favor redistributive policies; 2) Academics is now typecast as a suitable job for liberal thinkers.

This last quote says a lot:

“[W]e theorize that, within the general constraint that more liberals than conservatives will aspire for advanced educational credentials and academic careers of any kind, liberal students will be far more inclined than conservatives to enter fields that have come to define themselves around left-valenced images of intellectual personhood,” the paper says. “Over the course of its 20th century history, for example, sociology has increasingly defined itself as the study of race, class, and gender inequality — a set of concerns especially important to liberals — and this means that sociology will consistently recruit from a more liberal applicant pool than fields like mechanical engineering, and prove a more chilly home for those conservatives who manage to push through into graduate school or the academic ranks.”

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Matt J. Duffy, PhD, is an academic media scholar. His works have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Middle East Media, the Journal of Mass Media Ethics and the Newspaper Research Journal. An assistant professor of communication, Duffy teaches UAE and international media law at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. He is an active member of AUSACE, the Arab-US Association for Communication Educators. Follow him on Twitter.

25 Comments

(1) Indeed. Capitalism just doesn't show those Elizabethan Poetry, Semiotics and Chicano Studies majors the love, so they hate it.(2) Perhaps, but that's a pretty broad – and somewhat lame – explanation.How about (3):Many academics are free from one of the most rigorous constraints facing other occupations: external standards. An engineer will ultimately be judged on whether the structures he designs hold up, a businessman on whether he makes money, and so on. By contrast, the ultimate test of many academic ideas is whether other academics find those ideas interesting, original, persuasive, elegant, or ingenious. There is no external test.That the Corvair was as safe as any other car on the road has not cut into Ralph Nader’s speaking fees, nor has the failure of hundreds of millions of people to starve to death diminished Paul Ehrlich’s access to grant money. They only have to maintain the esteem of the intelligentsia to keep the gravy train running.

PS: I dispute the "high intelligence" characterization, too. Highly educated, yes. While there is some overlap, they are not synonymous. Remember Orwell's famous words about "…so foolish no ordinary person could believe it."

From the comments "No, there are not many avowed Communists and Socialists in the [CEOs and various boards of directors of the ] Fortune 500. Then again, failure is not an option in more productive operations."LOL.

I think most people who earn a real PhD are of "high intelligence." They are just as intelligent, let's say, as bankers and lawyers, two fields that pay considerably better than academia. Darcy, this is my good friend Scott. He is *not* an academic. 🙂

Matt, I fear I have expressed myself badly. I think there are many different kinds of intelligence. More to the point, there is one kind of intelligence that allows one to succeed in the academy, another in business, yet another in law, etc. etc, Of course, people who have PhD's have high intelligence – of the sort required to earn a PhD. They often have a high level of "general" intelligence (if there is such a thing).I'd even make the case that "Juris Doctor" aside, most PhD'd academics are *more* educated than bankers or lawyers.But that doesn't alter the fact that (good) bankers make money, (good) lawyers win settlements or cases and good academics make, well, books and papers.Sometimes books and papers of great value, but books and papers paid for by taxes and investments.

I'd argue that academia is made up of largely left-leaning people because the whole foundation of intellectual inquiry is based on questioning the status quo. Or, at least this would explain the social/cultural liberalism of academia.As far as leaning to the left on economics (which is NOT liberal, at least according to classical standards), I'm more pessimistic about academia. I think academics (myself included, at times), tend to think that, because of our education, we're better suited to run things. There's a streak of elitism here – people are blinded by ideology and need to be told how to live their lives. Academics are the ones to do that.For my part, I'll whole-heartedly preach the social/cultural liberalism, but I'll leave the economic stuff to people who actually have money 🙂

Thanks for your candor, Drew. You zeroed in on my #1 beef with the academy: the widespread assumption among academics that they are, as you put it, "better suited to run things".That elitist assumption, combined with the real-world results/accountability disconnect I described above is a recipe for disaster.If you could, would you expand a bit on "the whole foundation of intellectual inquiry is based on questioning the status quo"? Also, what happens when that "status quo" is overwhelmingly left-leaning as it is in the academic world?

I am reminded of a passage from David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day":"Because he was a card-carrying communist, Patrick hated being referred to as the boss. 'This is a collective,' he'd say. 'Sure, I might happen to own the [moving] truck, but that doesn't make me more valuable than the next guy. If I'm betrer than you, it's only because I'm Irish.'I'd never cared for any of the self-proclaimed Marxists I'd known back in college, but Patrick was different. One look at his teeth and you could understand his crusade for universal health care. Both his glasses and his smile were held together with duct tape. Notable, too was his willingness to engage in actual, physical work.The communists I'd known in the past had always operated on the assumption that, come the revolution, they'd be the ones lying around Party headquarters with clipboards in their hands, deciding what everyone else should do. They couldn't manage to wash a coffee mug, but they were more than willing to criticize the detergent manufacturer.Patrick's mugs were clean, and neatly lined up on the drainboard."

As I said when we were discussing this on the phone yesterday, there is an issue that branches off from this that has always been a source of puzzlement in my mind. Why DO we reward entertainers, and professional athletes, and CEOs as richly as we do in this country…when the people we most depend on…without whom our very lives would unravel (nurses, farmers, teachers, firefighters, police…) often barely scrape by?And before anyone freaks out — I want to clarify that I am not some raving communist from Vermont. (While I do live in VT, and I did vote for Bernie Sanders, the comparisons end there. ;-D) I'm just genuinely puzzled by that aspect of human nature.In short — if we each could choose to pay people what we think their services are worth *to us personally*, I think I'd probably be paying a lot more to the fireman who pulls people from burning buildings than I would to say…Angelina Jolie or Derek Jeter. I realize that's just me. It just has always seemed funny is all…

@Scott: I also think a distinction needs to be made between science scholars and humanities scholars (though I have problems with drawing a strict boundary between the two). People who do research in, say, cancer treatment, are definitely held accountable to external standards: do their treatments effectively treat cancer? If so, they get more grant money. If not, the money dries up. Science scholars get WAY more in the way of grant money/funding than do humanities scholars, so in a way, they are under much more scrutiny.All scholars (both humanities and science) are also held accountable to their peers. I realize that these "peers" are a very small group, but they do provide some checks to intellectual inquiry. And I'd argue that the peer-group of scholars is no smaller than something like the peer-group of mechanics. Both fields require a degree of specialization, and it doesn't make sense to make the peer-group more general. What of value do I have to add to the conversation about computer controlled A/C in cars?Your other point questioned the "value" of humanities work, and this is something I struggle with myself. What is the point of our work? From a strictly market-based perspective, there is no value, except for the fact that film classes are some of the most popular classes at universities, and thus bring in a ton of money in tuition. The production of knowledge (and art) is not something that provides huge profits. It is something that has to be subsidized by society at large. This is nothing new. In the past, artists and scholars were subsidized by wealthy patrons. Now we're subsidized by tax money. The broader philosophical question is whether the pursuit of knowledge is a value in itself, aside from monetary profits. I think it is. However, it also means scholars have a responsibility to be diligent with their work.

As far as my claim that the enterprise of academia is to question the status quo, I mean that I view my job to be a critic of the taken-for-granted assumptions of society. Or, I try to elaborate and discuss cultural processes. Personally, I don't try to foist my beliefs on my students, but I do ask my students to examine their own reasons for believing things. This act of questioning the fundamental grounds of personhood has a tendency to be viewed as "liberal" or threatening. Though I would never ask my students to share my beliefs, it is the process of questioning that is most valuable and also the most threatening. Because an academic's job is to ask questions, there is the impression that we're all a bunch of libertine pinkos. However, if you start talking to professors and sitting in on classes, you'll see that most of the time that's all we do: ask students questions. We don't try to brainwash anybody.I'd agree that there is a general leaning towards the left of academics, but the best scholars don't hesitate to constantly questions their own beliefs/assumptions. The same goes for science scholars. Culture has a tendency to be conservative (in that it doesn't like to change – people in power are very unwilling to give up that power), so questioning becomes a "liberal" act.

Thanks again, Drew. Rereading the thread, many would take exception or respond defensively to some things I've said.Clearly, your Midwestern upbringing (and your continued respect for that culture) has given you the easygoing swellness of Midwesternguy(tm) !Agreed, some science (the hard kind) and engineering are a different category than the humanities. I don't have a study to back this up, but this is my observation:If you imagine the academy as a spectrum with physics and chemistry at one end, ethnic/gender studies at the other and economics and law somewhere in between, I find that the likelihood an academic is leftist (or that a field of study is dominated by leftists) is a function of where a field falls on that scale.

LOL! Ummm…I've only made one comment here, so when you said "He's just questioning the status quo, baby!" I assumed (I hope correctly) the the "baby" you were referring to there was moi? So I was asking what you meant…b/c I hadn't said anything really about any particular status quo. <G>

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About the Author

Dr. Matt J. Duffy serves as an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Media at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, USA. He enjoys teaching the art of good journalism, a noble profession and powerful tool for social change. Duffy worked as a journalist for several news outlets including the Boston Herald and the Marietta Daily Journal. He now teaches journalism and media law.
Duffy's research focuses on international approaches to media law. Wolters Kluwer will publish the second edition of his"Media Laws in the United Arab Emirates" in 2017. He has published more than a dozen academic articles and writes occasionally for niche publications. Duffy enjoyed a visit to Pakistan in May 2016 as part of the Fulbright Scholar program from the US State Department. Since 2012, Duffy has served on the board of the Arab-United States Association for Communication Educators, an organization that aims to improve journalism in the Middle East. He also owns Oxford Editing that he started in 2007.